This invention relates to treating agents for metals and more particularly to an alkaline earth metal containing agent suitable for treating metals with high melting temperatures.
It is well known that addition of metallic magnesium to molten metals with melting temperatures in excess of about 2000.degree.F causes severe bubbling and splashing of the molten metals. This violent and hazardous reaction is undesirable for safety reasons. Additives for processes, such as desulfurization of iron and the nodularization of graphite in gray cast iron, have been developed which reduce the magnitude of the aforementioned violent reaction of magnesium with molten iron. Such additives are exemplified by porous coke, carbon, lime, silicon carbide and various briquetted or sponge-like forms of high melting temperature alloys which have been impregnated with molten magnesium. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,393,996 a porous body was impregnated with magnesium silicide by immersing the porous body into molten magnesium silicide and maintaining the body therein until the pores were substantially filled. The addition of the magnesium silicide containing porous body to molten cast iron causes a less violent reaction than the addition of porous bodies impregnated with magnesium metal.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,598,575 describes an iron treating inoculant coated with a refractory material to control the reaction of the inoculant in the molten iron. Iron skeletons were impregnated with magnesium in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,563,859 and 3,364,976 to produce addition agents for the treatment of iron base melts.